What's Happening

March 10, 2017, Modesto, California – Two Adrian Dominican Sisters – Sisters Cheryl Liske, OP, and Mary Priniski, OP – were among 800 grassroots community representatives to gather at the U.S. regional meeting of the World Meeting of Popular Movements. (WMPM). The first such interfaith gathering in the United States was February 16-19 at Central Catholic High School in Modesto, California.

The WMPM is a series of gatherings of grassroots people, organizers, and activists who have been called together by the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace to advise the pope and the world on how to meet the needs of two “fragilities” named by Pope Francis: the poor and the Earth. The U.S. regional gathering was organized by the Vatican, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and the Pacific Institute for Community Organization (PICO) Network.

Sister Cheryl, a member of the planning team for the regional meeting, had attended the WMPM gathering in Rome to get a feel for the gathering and to meet with others to structure the regional meeting in Modesto. A community organizer, she ministers at Gamaliel of Michigan, one of 44 affiliates of the national organization. Gamaliel’s mission is to “empower ordinary people to effectively participate in the political, environmental, social, and economic decisions affecting their lives.”

“I worked with our Gamaliel staff in various states and produced a delegation to Modesto of over 80 leaders and organizers,” including 19 from Michigan, Sister Cheryl said. The diverse group met beforehand and will meet as a follow-up on March 23, she added.

Sister Cheryl also invited Sister Mary to the regional meeting. Sister Mary ministers with the Catholic Community of the South, a “network of clergy and laity who are compelled by faith to solidarity with those on the margins,” according to the organization’s Facebook page. Sister Mary took the opportunity to engage with 11 Southern Catholic bishops about the issues involved in the gathering, and to meet with several grassroots community groups as well.

While the world meeting focused on issues such as land, labor, and lodging, the U.S. regional gathering focused on domestic issues of specific importance. “Right now immigration is the most pressing, and something we’re all working on,” Sister Cheryl explained. “Related to that is mass incarceration. We’re working on a strategy in Michigan to reduce prison [population] by about half.”

The gathering resulted in a document that included eight proposed actions, including the call to faith communities to establish themselves as sanctuaries for people facing deportation; bold, prophetic leadership from faith communities; state and regional meetings of popular movements; and the establishment of International Week of Action on May 1-7, 2017.

Both Sisters Mary and Cheryl came away from the gathering energized and inspired by their experience – from the talks they heard and the commitment of the people involved. Sister Cheryl was impressed by the “great speeches, great panels,” not just by bishops and other Church leaders, but by grassroots activists.

Sister Cheryl was moved by the talk from Cardinal Joseph Tobin, who challenged leaders to “get out there and do the work. We can’t just be praying and hoping for change,” Sister Cheryl said. Cardinal Tobin called for Catholics to work for the poor, to work for those who have been excluded from our society and in our economy, she added.

Sister Mary, for her part, was impressed by the talk given by Bishop Robert McElroy, of the Diocese of San Diego. Bishop McElory’s talk, widely discussed in U.S. Catholic newspapers, was also described in an article in the National Catholic Reporter.

A key point for Sister Mary was the encouragement she gained from the gathering, knowing that may people are working for justice and peace. “We are not alone,” she said. “If you feel alone, you are not. There are a lot of people around the world” working to bring about justice and peace. “The pope is very much supporting the work that we’re doing to stand with those who are suffering.”

November 30, 2016, Rome – Sister Cheryl Liske, OP, a community organizer in Detroit, attended the third World Meeting of Popular Movements in November. The following is her report and reflection on this experience.

In the opening panel of the World Meeting of Popular Movements (WMPM) this November in Rome, Cardinal Peter Turkson, head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, quoted Pope Francis as naming two “fragilities” in our world: the poor and Earth – two faces, he said, of the same challenge.

The WMPM is a series of gatherings of grassroots people, organizers, and activists who have been called together by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace to advise the pope and the world – out of their own “faith, wisdom, and integrity” – as to how to meet this one challenge with two faces. The most recent gathering in Rome was the third in the series; the fourth will be in Modesto, California, February 16-19, 2017.

The gathering consists of more than 200 participants from 68 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. The delegates come from diverse backgrounds in the “informal economy,” such as street vendors in South America, European migrants, migrant workers in China, slum dwellers in India, recyclers of our waste in a number of African countries and New York, and the informal transit providers in Africa.

My community organizing network, the Gamaliel Network, as well as the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, invited me – along with Ms. Patricia Williams from Metropolitan Organizing Strategy for Enabling Strength (MOSES) of Detroit – to be part of the 15-member U.S. delegation. We were chosen because of our work with people relegated to the margins in the urban areas of the United States.

At the end of the meeting, we presented proposals to Pope Francis. The proposals called for the rejection of the privatization of water; opposition to genetic manipulation or patenting, especially on seeds; a universal social salary for every worker (private, public, or popular); and the eradication of evictions that leave families without housing.

The WMPM participants pledged to work with Pope Francis to turn these ideas into real and effective rights locally, nationally, and internationally. Pope Francis’ response was widely reported in the international press. An article in America Magazine by Gerard O’Connell relates this of Pope Francis’ address:

In a powerful, one might even say revolutionary talk to participants at the third World Meeting of Popular Movements, Pope Francis denounced “the basic terrorism that derives from the global control of money on earth, threatens the entire humanity and gives rise to other terrorisms.” It also gives rise to fear, the building of walls and other forms of exclusion, including of immigrants.

I was privileged to be part of this gathering and found it a fitting end to the Year of Mercy.